CLASS XIII. 



STAMINA NUMEROUS AND INDEFINITE. 



This Class has seven Orders. 



Besides the indefinite number of stamina, usually 

 more than twenty, which is the character of this class, 

 they must be inserted in theReceptaculum, asClassXII. 

 required them to be inserted in the Calyx. 



WHITE WATER-LILY. This plant grows in 

 rivers and large pools, in dark mud, and blossoms in 

 the middle of summer very plentifully: the flower 

 has much the air of a tropical production ; but it has 

 no scent, and fades very soon after it is gathered. 



The laws of the vegetable world are perhaps as 

 numerous and infinitely various as of the other king- 

 doms of nature, though less obvious to common ob- 

 servers. If plants do not possess sensibility they often 

 possess irritability, and habits very analogous to those 

 of animal life. Linnaeus has enumerated forty-six 

 different flowers that close and open at certain hours 

 of the day. Some plants fold their leaves, or the 

 petals of their flowers, as if to take rest, or prevent 

 being stimulated by external bodies, some in the day 

 only, and others only in the night, and this Lin- 

 naeus calls the sleep of plants, from the apparent re- 

 semblance to that state among animals. The White 



